Let A^Z be the Cantor space of bi-infinite sequences in a finite alphabet A,
and let sigma be the shift map on A^Z. A `cellular automaton' is a continuous,
sigma-commuting self-map Phi of A^Z, and a `Phi-invariant subshift' is a
closed, (Phi,sigma)-invariant subset X of A^Z. Suppose x is a sequence in A^Z
which is X-admissible everywhere except for some small region we call a
`defect'. It has been empirically observed that such defects persist under
iteration of Phi, and often propagate like `particles'. We characterize the
motion of these particles, and show that it falls into several regimes, ranging
from simple deterministic motion, to generalized random walks, to complex
motion emulating Turing machines or pushdown automata. One consequence is that
some questions about defect behaviour are formally undecidable.Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures, 3 table